


(we) get bored of being alone

by injo



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew's at Palmetto, Boys sniping at each other, Brief existentialism, Fluff, Is sniping the Andriel love language?, M/M, Neil runs a bed & breakfast in Wales, POV Andrew Minyard, holiday au, it's spring break, tune in to find out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:46:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22897441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/injo/pseuds/injo
Summary: When Andrew had decided to throw a dart at Day's map on the dorm room wall, he had been full of nothing but the idle conviction that comes from abject boredom. Bored of his course, bored of exy, bored of late-night drives through South Carolina with his windows down and music blaring — just trying to feel… well, anything.***An AU where Andrew goes to Wales on Spring break and falls in love. (Happy St David's Day!)
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 11
Kudos: 211





	(we) get bored of being alone

**Author's Note:**

> A mega big thank you to the wonderful [wishbonetea](https://wishbonetea.tumblr.com/) for betaing and making this fic so much better, you da bomb. I'm also very grateful to [ceriann](https://klausajin.tumblr.com/) for your wonderful Welsh perspective. 
> 
> Also [Happy St David's Day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_David%27s_Day) to you wonderful readers!

When Andrew had decided to throw a dart at Day's map on the dorm room wall, he had been full of nothing but the idle conviction that comes from abject boredom. Bored of his course, bored of exy, bored of late-night drives through South Carolina with his windows down and music blaring — just trying to feel… well, anything.

'What you need, dearest cousin of mine, is to travel!' Nicky had shouted in his ear one night at Eden's Twilight, while Andrew sipped whiskey at the bar, gazing into nothingness. 'Germany was amazing! Or maybe Mexico would be more your jam? Who am I kidding, you're far too pale for the sun…'

A dart and a sleeping pill doped flight later, Andrew had arrived in London. A sticky train seat and a chatty taxi driver with an indecipherable accent later, he was at his bed & breakfast in Wales. It was raining and cold, but the streetlights shone with a golden glow that revealed intricate stonework, a slate roof, and a red door with gold lettering: 'The Fox's Den: Bed & Breakfast'. An icy droplet of water dripped down from the lamppost and down Andrew's neck, prompting him to readjust his backpack and shoulder through the front door.

A blast of warm air hit Andrew as he entered a cosy, slightly cramped reception. A man with hair nearly as red as the door was sitting behind an expansive mahogany desk that mirrored the roof beams overhead. He was watching something on the boxy TV in the corner, which looked like a rerun of last night's international exy match, but he glanced up when the little bell above the door tinkled. His gaze was almost as sharp as whatever had left the scars marring one of his cheeks, and his eyes were a fiery cold blue. So blue that they nearly distracted Andrew from the bizarre assortment of clothes the man was wearing: jorts (in this weather?), fluorescent yellow running shoes spattered with mud, and a hideous jumper the colour of moss.

'Your choice of clothing is atrocious,' Andrew said, as he set down his bag and pulled up the booking details on his phone.

The man raised a single eyebrow. 'Well, hello to you too. Didn't realise I was expecting a visit from the fashion police today."

"Fashion police? How old are you, twelve?"

"I'm flattered, but I can legally drink. I don't suppose you turned up for a reason other than to make comments about my appearance?"

Andrew turned the phone screen around so that the man could see his booking details, making him turn his attention from the TV screen he had previously been sneaking glances at. 

"Ah, Mr Minyard–"

"Andrew is fine."

"Well then, I'm Neil. Can't say it's a pleasure but you've certainly been more entertaining than the rest of my recent guests."

"Is ‘entertaining’ Welsh code for 'rude'?" Andrew sniped.

"No, it's customer service code for 'rude'. Now can I do my spiel so I can get back to the game?" Neil nodded his head towards the television.

Andrew shrugged.

"Breakfast is served from 7 am to 10 am with a choice of continental and traditional Welsh options. Laundry can be taken in at reception, which you see before you–” Neil gestured to the desk before continuing, ”and you will be staying in Room 12 which is on the second floor. Any questions?"

"Is there anything to do around here? Like sights?"

Neil stared at Andrew. "For people who like sheep, sure, there're plenty of sights. Do you have a rental car?" Neil said.

"Should I get one?" Andrew replied.

"Well, the nearest depot is about 40 miles east so good luck with that," Neil said, attention now firmly fixed—albeit incredulously—on Andrew. 

"Where else could I drive to, anyway?"

"Well, there's a mine you can tour, and old castles and crazy golf—"

"Crazy golf?" Andrew echoed.

"I've heard that's quite popular with families around here."

"I'll just let my wife and 2.1 kids know that when I unpack them."

Neil rolled his eyes. "There's also hiking? Plenty of trails around here."

Andrew nodded. "Do you have a map?"

"Sure, you can borrow mine," Neil said, and pulled out a battered orange map from beneath the reception desk. "Will there be anything else?"

Andrew shook his head and started up the stairs to his room. It was going to be a long week. 

***

Sweating, panting and splattered with mud, Andrew tossed the map onto the reception desk the next day, where it left a trail of rain water as it skidded toward Neil. 

"Never again," Andrew wheezed.

Neil looked up from his book, amusement dancing through his blue, blue eyes. "What happened?"

"The hill. Came out of nowhere. It was either that. Or a three-kilometre detour," Andrew said, breathing heavily. 

"So you took the hill?"

Andrew fixed Neil with a look. "What does it look like?"

"So no more hiking? There's a lovely bit of coastline just three miles—that's five kilometres for you—north if you're interested?" Neil replied, barely restrained laughter colouring his tone almost cheerful rather than the surliness of yesterday.

Andrew tried to sound firm, but he didn't think he was particularly successful when he was still trying to catch his breath. "No. More. Hiking."

***

Andrew was bored. If Andrew believed in regret, he may have felt annoyed with himself for not doing more logistical research before plonking himself in the ass-end of nowhere. As it was, he just felt bored, bored, and bored again as he trudged down the stairs out of his room at the B&B.

Neil looked up from his desk, where he was writing away in a leather journal. "You need a lift anywhere?" he asked. 

Andrew narrowed his eyes. Was his boredom that self-evident?

"My shift's about to finish so I'm about to head down to the pub. I could drop you off somewhere on the way?" Neil offered, getting up and stretching. 

A line of skin between Neil's jorts and the hideous mustard-coloured shirt was revealed. Andrew felt a dull throb of something in the pit of his stomach. Something decidedly _not_ boredom.

"How would I get back?" Andrew asked. 

"You could always walk it back," Neil said, looking at Andrew with barely concealed mischief. He continued when Andrew gave him a flat look. 

"Okay how's this: you come to the pub with me and I'll drop you back here afterwards. You get to have an authentic Welsh pub experience and a chauffeur.It's a win all around."

"Why?" Andrew asked.

"Let's just say I can hear you wearing down the tread on my carpets upstairs with your pacing and I want to save myself a new carpet bill."

Andrew walked forward until just the desk was between him and Neil. "Why?" he asked again. 

Neil hesitated. "I'm bored, too."

***

"This is your car?" Andrew said, reluctantly impressed. He had seen the bright orange Jaguar F-type coupe the day before on his way hiking and assumed it must belong to a guppy city-type.

"My uncle likes to give me flashy gifts," Neil said, shrugging as he clicked the car open.

The smell of new car, not the air freshener but _actual_ new car, hit Andrew as he slid into the passenger seat.

"So, you like cars?" Neil asked.

"No shit, Sherlock," Andrew said.

"Josten,” Neil corrected. “Though I can see why my devilish smarts would maybe convince you otherwise." He tossed Andrew an undeniably goofy grin as he pulled the car out of the parking lot.

Was this flirting? Andrew couldn’t remember the last time someone had flirted with him, and Roland didn’t count; Roland flirted with everyone.

"'Devilish smarts'?" Andrew echoed with a mocking tone. "Your dumb ass is wearing jorts in this weather."

"'Devilish smarts'?" Andrew echoed with a mocking tone. "Your dumb ass is wearing jorts in this weather."

"It's Wales," Neil said. "The weather is always cold and rainy. What brought you here anyway? You don't enjoy hiking, and you don't seem like the type to visit castle ruins or graves of old Welsh kings."

"I could secretly be into history. I have layers, Neil." Andrew replied, deadpan.

"Like an onion?" Neil turned left onto a road that seemed to be made entirely out of winding curves with overgrown hedges on either side. 

"No, more like a hedgehog," Andrew replied.

"Because you're small and only come out at night?" Neil asked.

"No, because I have prickles," Andrew said.

Neil burst out laughing. Andrew felt that throb again, right in the pit of his stomach like someone had sucker-punched him.

"I threw a dart at a map,” Andrew said. “It said to go to Wales, so here I am."

"What made you throw the dart?" Neil asked, glancing at Andrew as they pulled up to a building with a thatched roof festooned with fairy lights.

"I was bored."

Neil nodded, understanding.

***

The pub didn’t have the same feel of Eden’s Twilight, with its throbbing bass and strobe lights, but the sticky bar and seedy clientele made Andrew feel at home anyway. 

"What are you doing here?" Andrew asked as he sat down, whiskey in one hand and a bright purple blackcurrant lemonade in the other. 

"In this pub? Having a drink." Neil replied.

"Don't be obtuse."

"It's been a while since someone asked me that, is all" Neil said, and Andrew nodded at him to go on. "I think the guests who stay at the B&B assume I'm on a permanent holiday or something, but the reality of it is that I've always felt like I'm passing through."

Andrew took a sip of his whiskey. "How long have you been 'passing through' for?"

"About two years now. It's a good job, pays well and leaves me with enough free time to run and do the things I want to do. But I feel restless, you know? Like there must be more to this."

"This being?"

Neil waved his hands around to gesture the expanse of hills and fields out of the tudor-style windows of the pub. Andrew noticed a 1973 Wales vs England rugby game inexplicably playing on a screen in the corner. "Without wanting to get all existential: life. I've always been running from something, and now that thing is gone I don't know what to do with myself."

Andrew took another sip of whiskey, and welcomed the smokey taste and the way it burned through the words on the tip of his tongue before he said something stupid. "I hope you are not looking to find an answer from me. Dart, map, remember? We are all running from something, some just outrun their problems faster than others."

"Have you outrun yours?" Neil asked.

"Demons? Yes. Myself? No." Andrew said.

"But you can never outrun yourself," Neil said, drawing lines through the condensation on the outside of his glass.

"Exactly."

Neil looked thoughtful. "But you can become someone you no longer want to run away from."

Andrew set his glass down. "Easier said than done."

"Easier done than the alternative,” Neil said. “Which is running away from yourself forever.” His eyes twinkled with something like amusement, “Who knows, running might even make you end up in the arse end of Wales.”

It was the fairy lights that made Neil’s eyes light up Andrew corrected. The fairy lights.

***

Andrew ended up spending the better part of the week with Neil. On Monday Neil took Andrew to the coastline he had suggested a few days ago.

"Why is it so fucking cold and windy at the beach?" Andrew had complained, though he didn't hate the sight of Neil's bare calves covered in sea-spray.

On Wednesday they went to visit a ruined castle, and Neil told him that the castle was over eight-hundred years old.

Andrew hadn't been impressed. "Those fucking steps make me feel over eight-hundred years old."

On Thursday they played crazy-golf, and despite Neil listing it as a tourist attraction, he didn't seem to fully grasp the concept himself.

"I don't know why they call it crazy golf," he had said, putting yet another hole-in-one through the legs of a plastic brontosaurus. "Like sure, the putters are smaller and there are dinosaurs everywhere, but that doesn't seem quite wild enough to be considered 'crazy,' you know?"

"You're crazy if you think this is anyone's idea of a good time," Andrew replied, his shot once again going wildly askance and getting caught in the curve of the brontosaurus' tail.

On Saturday they paid a visit to a Welsh King's grave.

"So what I am hearing you say is that these are the bones of some old man who spent his life terrorising a bunch of farmers into giving him money so he could live it up while they lived like shit?" Andrew asked.

Neil nodded once. "Yes."

"If I wanted to see a protection racquet I would have just gone to downtown Columbia."

It was through these day-trips that Andrew could feel something within himself settle into place. Yes, Neil was a nuisance with a big mouth and not enough sense, but there was something about him that was grounding. Slowly but surely, Neil was anchoring Andrew to a sense of reality. His constant snipes with that smart mouth, his atrocious fashion sense, the way he effortlessly guided his ridiculously coloured coupe through the narrow, winding roads—there was something so human about Neil, and it reminded Andrew that it was okay—good even—to be human, too.

***

"I can't believe you're already leaving," Neil said, taking the keys Andrew handed him from across the reception desk. Neil typed something on his keyboard before looking up at Andrew with an indecipherable expression playing across his face. 

"Come with me," Andrew said, the words escaping him before he had even known he was going to say them.

"What?" Neil said, his eyes widening.

Andrew thought to himself before repeating, "Come with me."

"But VISAs? Flights? I don't even have any of my clothes with me."

"Details we can work out later,” Andrew said, deliberately seeking Neil’s eyes. “Neil."

"Andrew."

"This week, it made me—” Andrew started, “not stop running, but made me want to stop running."

Neil nodded. "It's been amazing."

"I do not want it to end."

Neil nodded again. "Me neither."

Andrew stepped around the reception desk to face Neil. He tilted Neil's chin down with a finger and thumb, gazing into his fiery cold blue eyes. 

"I want to kiss you, Neil. Yes or no?"

Neil blinked. "Yes."

Their lips touched and the throbbing inside Andrew intensified until he could feel it spreading through his chest, his heart hammering against his ribs as he finally, _finally_ felt something real.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! My tumblr is [here](https://injoblogs.tumblr.com/) <3


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